He will march like a wind-up toy down the street into Sharrett’s Liquor Store to buy a bottle of vodka.

Or he will go to a drugstore for a bottle of mouthwash, the kind with twice as much alcohol as wine.

He will then drink for about five days. He will be sick for two days, then he will take a few days to “heal.”

Then, he will do it all again — if he gets a few more dollars.

“When I was a kid, I used to hate people who were drunk,” said Hagerman, 54, slumped on his bed in his tiny room in St. Anthony Residence. “Now look at me.”

He began to drink when he was 15. He got his first arrest for drunken driving six months after getting his license, at age 21.

His license was revoked — and that was the last time he had one. He drove without a license for the next 13 years, racking up five more DWI arrests before he stopped driving.

When his blood-alcohol level was tested, it was routinely two or three times the legal limit.

One time, he said, he blew a 0.5, more than six times today’s limit. It was so high he stopped breathing.

After that he spent a week in a hospital — where, of course, he could not drink.

So he bolted. “One day I sat up, pulled all the needles out of my arm and walked out,” he said.

He bee-lined to a Walgreens and stole a bottle of mouthwash. He walked into another shelter, hiding it under his coat, and pounded it down.

In court, he was usually given the choice between jail or alcoholism treatment — which is usually no choice at all. But one time, he picked jail because he was so tired of what he called the self-righteous, probing and condescending treatment programs.

“I couldn’t stand it,” he said, in the deep voice of a late-night jazz DJ. “It’s never-ending: ‘Tell us about your problems. What did you do as a kid?’ ”

He has had about 25 jobs. “I quit ’em because of drinking. It was either warehouse work or being a machinist,” Hagerman said.

When his mother died in 2001, he said, “the family kind of disappeared,” and he has lost contact with his three brothers.

Hagerman was homeless for two years. In winter, he’d survive in the Minneapolis skyways.

“I could always find a cubbyhole somewhere,” he said.

A few years ago, he was hit by a car and got an insurance settlement of $20,000. The money lasted six months. He spent it on crack cocaine.

He liked the high but said it didn’t last long.

“I would buy a $20 piece and — boom! — it was gone in 10 minutes,” Hagerman said. “I never got addicted, though. I don’t know why. But it kept me away from drinking.”

He was arrested in 2004 for stealing two women’s coats from Saks Fifth Avenue in Minneapolis. They were worth about $1,000 each, he said, which could have bought a lot of vodka.

For that, he spent a year in jail.

He doesn’t panhandle, he says, but survives on the $89 a monthhe gets from Ramsey County. Hagerman has worked day jobs for cash, his last one two years ago.

A lack of money is the only thing that keeps him sober. He knows all the prices — vodka is $8.70 for a 1.5-liter bottle, and mouthwash is $3.54 at Target.

“I get crap for drinking mouthwash,” he said. “Everyone says that stuff will kill you. Well, so will cheap vodka.”

In his room, a 12-by-12 concrete cube, Hagerman was asked about the scars that alcohol has left.

His face? “I got jumped when I was drinking.”

His right arm? “I put my fist through a window.”

His toe? “I broke that a few days ago, right there,” he said, pointing to a cinder-block wall.

As he spoke, he tore open a few butts from his hand-rolled cigarettes, shook out the bits of tobacco and then scraped them together to roll a new one. He puffed a few times, then sat wreathed in smoke, thinking.

“Whose fault is it? I guess it’s my own fault. I am not happy with my lifestyle.”

Then he corrected himself: “It’s not a lifestyle, it’s an existence. I exist. I don’t live.”

If he hates drinking so much, why does he do it?

He opened his mouth. The smoke floated out, with no purpose or direction.

“I have no idea,” he said.

WAYNE BRITTON

Half an hour before sunrise last Monday, the Can Man of St. Paul was hard at work.

Wayne Britton, 59, climbed onto his bike in the dark, hooked up his bike trailer, and started out on a seven-hour, 20-mile can-collecting routine.

“I might be crazy, but at least it’s better than lying around all day doing nothing,” said Britton, weaving through ice-covered puddles on University Avenue.

He squeezed past a line of students waiting at a bus stop — and half of them gave Britton a withering stare.

It could have been the word “H-A-T-E” tattooed on his right-hand knuckles, matching “L-O-V-E” on the left. Or the clatter of his ramshackle trailer. Or the torn jeans.

But he didn’t seem to notice. “I never ride a bus. Buses don’t stop when I want to stop,” he said.

Britton is the first to acknowledge that Minnesota is safer with him on a bike instead of behind the wheel of a car. He has 12 arrests for drunken driving. “Drunken driving,” he said, “is the only kind I did.”

He started drinking when he was 12. “My dad was my drinking buddy,” Britton said. “We’d drink beer and shoot pool.”

He served 12 years in jail for the DWIs and four more for an assault. “Actually, I think jail lengthened my life” by interrupting his drinking, he said.

He has been to detox 50 times and in alcoholism treatment four times. Because of alcohol, he has been homeless off and on since the 1970s.

“There are a lot of should-haves in my life,” Britton said. “I get mad at myself. I am drinking and not doing anything else.”

At 7:20 a.m., he spotted a major find — an 8-foot aluminum downspout, the weight of dozens of cans. He stomped on it, folding it into quarters, and tucked it into the trailer.

He checked a line of recycling bins behind a house. From a garbage can, he pulled out a fan and reached for his clippers. He snipped off the cord — copper fetches 71 cents a pound, he said.

Britton has the unnerving habit of riding into oncoming traffic on side streets. “The cars make me nervous, coming up behind me,” he said, as he veered to avoid an oncoming Buick.

He seems to know every early riser along his route, especially on the University of Minnesota campus.

People take care of him. One church hides its cans in a window well for Britton to collect. One college fraternity gave him his bicycle. Someone else left a pair of boots by a garbage can.

Britton knows what’s going on. Trash is full of clues about who is doing what. He knows who is remodeling and who is partying, and when. At times, police have asked for his help solving a murder or an assault.

“The caretaker at this place is a heavy drinker, and he likes Coors,” he said, as he pawed through a garbage can along University Avenue.

Britton spotted a metal plant stand and whipped out a small magnet, which he keeps on a keychain. He tapped it expertly on the metal. It gave a slight tug — meaning it wasn’t aluminum. He left it behind.

Looking into a Dumpster, he saw two cans at the bottom. “Years ago, I would have jumped in there, but now I have arthritis in my knees,” he said.

The work is perfect for Britton, who likes to work alone. At St. Anthony, he isn’t always willing to talk.

“If a guy is having a bad day, you get away from him,” he said. “I have to say, ‘Give me my space!’ That is all I am asking.”

He separates himself from other alcoholics. “I never ask people for money,” he said. “That’s why I don’t run with the guys from the house.”

He has no patience for those who complain about St. Anthony. “They say it’s like a minimum-security prison,” Britton said. “I tell them if that is so, I will gladly serve a life sentence for you.”

He is grateful for the housing, which sometimes gets him into arguments. “On Thanksgiving, I told the guys, ‘We have a lot to be thankful for!’ And they said, ‘What are you — staff?’ ”

Britton says he will drink until he dies — and he knows what he’s talking about: “I have tried drinking myself to death.”

What keeps him going?

“There is a man up above, and I look up to him,” said Britton. He said, as if speaking to God: “It’s your day, not mine. You are the leader.”

Why doesn’t he quit drinking?

He stared, as if someone had just asked him to stop breathing: “You want to hear the same old recording?”

RON

It’s been a long road from the fields of South Dakota to a hospice in St. Paul — mostly downhill.

And Ron is relieved to be near the end.

“I am going to keep drinking, and I don’t expect to live long,” said Ron, 61 who didn’t want his last name published.

“I don’t have any long-term goals. Look at my age. Look at my work history.”

The overweight alcoholic sat in an office in November, looking like a dejected Santa Claus at an AA meeting.

In a soft voice, he said he has been through treatment eight times, and he’s not going again.

He once spent six months in a treatment program in Willmar, Minn. It was, perhaps, $60,000 down the drain. For him, all treatment is a waste.

Both of his parents died because of alcoholism. Ron started drinking when he was 21.

He lost a marriage because of it, then started losing jobs.

He would like to work, he said, but considers the job market hopeless. “When you apply for a job and give this address, that is the end of it,” he said.

He has never had to live under a bridge, but has stayed for years with family and friends and in halfway houses.

Ron has never had a DWI. “I should have had 30,000,” he said. He estimates he has been to emergency rooms 30 times, one followed by a three-week hospital stay.

Ron arrived at St. Anthony Residence 18 months ago. Now, he says, it’s the only place he will ever call home.

Why should taxpayers support him?

“It saves money in the long run,” he said. “I am not in detox and halfway houses or in a hospital or jail.”

Like residents of conventional hospices, he is at peace with his impending death.

“It can be depressing, if that’s what you choose,” said Ron, hands folded across his ample belly.

“But that’s not for me. If I were not here, I would be dead or homeless. I feel accepted here.”

Bob is a 40-year veteran (yes, he is grizzled) who edited one Pulitzer Prize winner and wrote two that were nominated. He has also worked in Des Moines, Colorado Springs and Palo Alto. He writes about the suburbs, the environment, housing, religion -- anything but politics. Secret pleasures: Kayaking on the Mississippi on the way to work, doughnuts brought in by someone else. Best office prank: Piling more papers onto Fred Melo’s already trash-covered desk.

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